We rolled down I-95 past St. Augustine, Florida, on Thursday about twelve noon and found our campground just south of there off SR 207. I had picked it out of the Passport America directory and was curious to see how the description jibed with the actual place.
As you might expect, things always look better on paper than they do in person. However, in this case, some of the sites were paved and level, a big plus for me. Unfortunately, no one was in the office when we arrived, and still not there when we returned from lunch and the outlet malls up the road at five-fifteen that evening.
So, the next morning at eight-thirty I walked over to find that someone was actually in. Turns out the site I had picked was reserved for someone else arriving Friday evening...

We arrived at Sint Maarten (that’s the Dutch spelling for their side of the island) shortly after dawn under clear skies. Since our tour wasn’t scheduled until 10:30, we could take our time about breakfast. As I was waiting for Ellen to get ready, I wandered out on our veranda and noticed a barge pushed by tug boats inching up to our aft starboard side.
It looked industrial with a small crane in the middle of an otherwise flat and unremarkable deck, but there was nothing about it to suggest what it was there for. It was soon tied up to the ship, and I made a mental note to stop at Guest Relations to inquire about it. Curiosity, nothing more.
After breakfast, I stopped at the main desk on deck three and asked the young lady what the barge...

Oh boy, we’re leaving on our annual tropical cruise here in just a few days and I can hardly wait. Who wouldn’t love lazy days in the warm sun, reading by the pool under clear blue skies and eating great food ’til I’m ready to ‘splode. But, inevitably, after about ten days cruising, I’m ready to get on back home.
Not that I’m eager to return to gray winter skies and cold windy days – yes, we can have a lot of them even in North Carolina. It’s just that I couldn’t live the rest of my life aimlessly with nothing more to occupy my days than lying around, reading and occasionally visiting a tropical port. Looking at that in print now and it seems, well, self-indulgent. But, then, that’s just what a cruise...

After weeks of research and work, we’re rolling out some exciting changes on the site, and we hope you get as excited as we are. So, please take a few moments to check out some of the new features.
If you’re tired of bouncing around the internet checking here, there and everywhere for travel deals, you can stop now. With our new affiliation with One Travel, you only need to go to one place for the prices on airfares, rental cars and accomodations you’re looking for. You can simply click over there on the right column where you see Airfare Deals! Or you can click on Hotel Deals! And so on. (Sometimes I will have special coupon codes here in the sidebar, so it’s a good idea to check the sidebar first!)
Planning a trip or thinking about a...

Since Ellen hadn’t been able to be at AirVenture with me in July, I’d promised that we’d take that long overdue beach trip when I returned from Wisconsin (see posts Oshkosh AirVenture, The Storm Arrives-AirVenture and Pictures From AirVenture) and northern Indiana (see posts Assembly Plant and RV Hall of Fame). So it was that, a week after I got back, we had the new RV loaded and were heading out for our favorite beach area – Emerald Isle, North Carolina. Pulling an RV, it was about a three hour trip, but not a bad drive traffic-wise.
There are two RV parks nearest the western end of Emerald Isle, and we’ve mostly stayed at the slightly less expensive one. This time, though, we decided to splurge the extra ten dollars per night...